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« on: February 27, 2012, 11:33:18 PM » |
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The Patriot Post Brief 2-27-2012
From The Federalist Patriot
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The Foundation
"Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression." --James Madison
For the Record
"With the average price of a gallon of gasoline rising 40 cents just last week, President Obama attacked Republicans [Thursday], trying to distract voters from his own failed energy policy. 'The American people aren't stupid,' Obama said. 'You know there are no quick fixes to this problem.' ... Obama has been in office for three years now. There is plenty the federal government can do to lower gas prices in three years. Problem is, everything Obama has done on energy has been designed to increase Americans' pain at the pump. ... Yes, oil and gas production is up in the United States. But this is happening in spite of Obama, not because of him. It is being driven entirely by increased production on state and private lands, areas where Obama has little power to shut down production. The reality is that Obama's goal has always been higher gas prices. His Energy Secretary Steven Chu famously told The Wall Street Journal in 2008, 'Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.' And when Obama was asked by CNBC's John Harwood that same year if high gas prices actually 'helped' the United States, Obama said, 'I think that I would have preferred a gradual adjustment.' Americans aren't stupid. They remember Obama's words. They know that the only real regret Obama has about high gas prices is that he may get blamed for them at the ballot box." --Washington Examiner's Conn Carroll1
Is Obama playing political games with gas prices?2
Opinion in Brief
"Corporate tax reform has long been an opportunity for a win-win bipartisan effort in Washington. Everyone agrees that the corporate code needs significant changes, if not a complete overhaul; it's too complicated, too costly, and rewards the larger companies that can afford to analyze it for every possible benefit. Both parties have made corporate tax reform part of their platforms, Democrats arguing that we need to close loopholes, Republicans that we need simplification and lower rates. The White House decided to go first on corporate tax reform. ... From a political perspective, [Obama's proposal] may be even worse than its economics. For the second straight year, Obama has launched a major proposal while deliberately disregarding his own advisory panel's recommendations. That turned into political disaster last year, when Obama's budget ignored his own appointed deficit panel. ... Now his new corporate tax proposal ignores the recommendations from the panel Obama created to much fanfare last year as part of his focus on job creation and economic growth. The obvious conclusion is that Obama has prioritized punitive tax changes on American business in order to fund his spending expansion over economic growth. Republicans need to emphasize that Obama's job council turned out to be nothing more than a smoke screen, just the same as Simpson-Bowles, and that this corporate tax 'reform' is anything but." --blogger Ed Morrissey3
Government
"It turns out that under Obamacare ... all insurance plans must cover, at no charge, abortion-inducing drugs, contraceptives, sterilization, and patient education and counseling for women of reproductive age. ... This is not a one-time exception to the rule of Obamacare; it is the establishment of the rule itself. One can only imagine what life will be like when the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) begins rationing health benefits to reduce Medicare spending. It is not the details in Obamacare that are the real problem but the form of governance it establishes, by which unelected experts are empowered to make the rules as they go along. What is happening has little to do with health care or even public policy and everything to do with the role of government in the most immediate and intimate matters of our lives. All is subject to government control, regulatory dictate, and administrative whim. ... It is what happens when a model of government focused on determining outcomes, despite good intentions, finally acquires the unlimited authority to reshape society to its bureaucratic blueprint." --Heritage Foundation's Matthew Spalding4
The Gipper
"We can either have an economy that puts the private citizen at the center -- the consumer, the worker, the entrepreneur -- and lets each individual be the judge of what to buy or sell, where to work, where to invest, and what to create. Or we can put the government at the center of the economy and let the bureaucrats and politicians call the balls and strikes and decide who's out of business, or who will get the big contract and be home free." --Ronald Reagan5
Essential Liberty
"This perversion of rights is killing the Western world. ... All the free stuff is free in the sense of those offers that begin 'You pay nothing now!' But you will eventually. No nation is rich enough to give you all this 'free' stuff year in, year out. ... According to the Senate Budget Committee, U.S. government debt is currently $44,215 per person. Going by the official Obama budget numbers, it will rise over the next 10 years to $75,000. As I say, that's per person: 75 grand in debt for every man, woman and child, not to mention every one of the ever swelling ranks of retirees and disabled Social Security recipients -- or about $200,000 per household. ... At some point, no matter how painless the seductions of statism, you run up against the hard math: As those debt per capita numbers make plain, all this 'free' stuff is doing is mortgaging your liberty and lining up a future of serfdom." --columnist Mark Steyn6
Political Futures
"Obama supporters are beginning to feel more confident, or at least less embarrassed. A year ago, even three months ago, they were thinking: What a confounding, confusing loser this man is. They didn't bother defending him never mind advancing him. But now they're starting to get friskier. They believe there's a new lay to the land: The economy is coming back, at least for now and at least a little; the Republican nominee will emerge so bloodied his victory will hardly be worth having; the Republicans are delving into areas so extreme and off point that by the end Mr. Obama will look like the moderate. ... It is true the Republican candidates are making the president look better, and part of it has to do with circumstances. ... They're accusing each other, he's ignoring them. He pounds away on his issues, they have a thousand issues, a jumble of questions and answers and stands. There is no nominee and so no prioritizing of concerns, and therefore no central meaning. It's all an acrimonious blur. Good news: This may be the Republicans' low point. Bad news: The low point may last until the convention, and through it. It's all getting a little exhausting." --columnist Peggy Noonan7
Insight
"The world runs on individuals pursuing their separate interests. The greatest achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus. Einstein didn't construct his theory under order from a bureaucrat. Henry Ford didn't revolutionize the automobile industry that way. In the only cases in which the masses have escaped from ... grinding poverty ... the only cases in recorded history are where they have had capitalism and largely free trade. If you want to know where the masses are worst off, it's exactly in the kind of societies that depart from that." --economist Milton Friedman (1912-2006) |
